This is -- before all -- what His Being IS because the Father (Who is other than the Son) loves the Son, and the Son (Who is other than the Father) loves the Father in Eternity. He IS the MAKER of others (this is His first love in creation) : it is the others who can (and do) make (themselves) EVIL.

I AM chooses “others” and willingly suffers (allows) the necessary risk. He has a plan! He is as committed in Creation to love of “other(ness)” as He is in His own Eternal Being. History documents our faith, and shakes its head in derision at that other story man tells himself.

Seems to me you need to rethink this matter. You say the Father is other than the Son and the Son is other than the Father. Then you go on to say I AM chooses "others" which seemingly indicates that mankind and The Son are both other than the Father in the same sense. If so, this would seem to indicate that God the Father and God the Son are individuals and not part of a Trinity.

Definition of other1a : being the one (as of two or more) remaining or not included; held on with one hand and waved with the other one b : being the one or ones distinct from that or those first mentioned or implied; taller than the other boys

As I understand the atonement, God internalized the punishment on the cross. If Jesus is "other" than the Father in the sense of being a separate individual, but is divine in the sense of being composed of "god stuff", then it seems to me God punished some "other" being for our transgressions.

I have a question, Homer. If Jesus and the Father are the same divine Individual, then to whom was Jesus praying when He walked this earth? Was He talking to Himself?

Any analogy we try to make in an effort to explain the unsearchable God is sure to be incomplete. God is beyond our comprehension. Having said that, I would say that there is communication between the various parts of the human body. In fact two communication systems exist in our bodies: hormonal and electrical. The hand is not an eye, yet both communicate within the body.

Thank you for taking time to read my post(s). I will try to clarify my words regarding your concern when you say :

>>>Seems to me you need to rethink this matter. You say the Father is other than the Son and the Son is other than the Father. Then you go on to say I AM chooses "others" which seemingly indicates that mankind and The Son are both other than the Father in the same sense. If so, this would seem to indicate that God the Father and God the Son are individuals and not part of a Trinity.<<<

The full context of my post(s) makes it clear [at least I intended that it should] that the “otherness” of the Son exists in the Eternal Being of God before Creation, that is, there is nothing of the created order in this dynamic of the Godhead. This preempts any conclusion that I might be saying, in your words, “that mankind and The Son are both other than the Father in the same sense.” Granted, the Son, in His Incarnation, does identify (mix Himself in) with the otherness of the created order, but this is to accomplish the plan (Rev. 13:8) set in Eternity (viz. the Eternal Being of God).

Your sentence, “If so, this would seem to indicate that God the Father and God the Son are individuals and not part of a Trinity,” leaves me questioning how it is that you apprehend the Trinity. If you will, please elaborate on how seeing God the Father and God the Son as “individuals,” negates the Trinity.

Homer>>>As I understand the atonement, God internalized the punishment on the cross. If Jesus is "other" than the Father in the sense of being a separate individual, but is divine in the sense of being composed of "god stuff", then it seems to me God punished some "other" being for our transgressions.<<<

My understanding of the atonement is that I AM incarnated (clothed Himself with the reality of what it is to be a created “i am”) and, by His concrete sacrifice, mixed His blood [His Life] into the organic wholeness of the created order so that “Something” that is ONLY pure (and cannot be corrupted) exists organically in our corrupt reality. It must be said that just the fact of His Incarnation already mixed Him (Purity) in organically with us, but it is His sacrifice of Himself that mixed the propitiation for sin organically into our reality.

Again…the blood of Jesus, in which is Life Eternal, is mixed into “the organic substance” of this Creation. His life giving blood is a concrete reality in the countless trillions upon trillions (to the trillionth power) of the “particles” that make up the whole organic substance of the created order. These words must be understood in the same sense that Jesus’ words in John 6 about (eating) His flesh and blood were meant, especially as He nears the close of His testimony in verse 63. Access to this Life (this blood) is through faith in His Presence by the Spirit because the reality that is “spiritual” underlies, and is more substantial than, our “material” reality.

I am wondering about your words, to wit : “then it seems to me God punished some "other" being for our transgressions.” Isn’t this -- taken in the sense that is intended -- exactly what He did?

Your sentence, “If so, this would seem to indicate that God the Father and God the Son are individuals and not part of a Trinity,” leaves me questioning how it is that you apprehend the Trinity. If you will, please elaborate on how seeing God the Father and God the Son as “individuals,” negates the Trinity.

We get all tangled up in words. The common understanding of individuals refers to separateness:

From Wikipedia-

An individual is a person. Individuality (or selfhood) is the state or quality of being an individual; particularly of being a person separate from other persons and possessing his or her own needs or goals, rights and responsibilities. The exact definition of an individual is important in the fields of biology, law, and philosophy.From the 15th century and earlier (and also today within the fields of statistics and metaphysics) individual meant "indivisible", typically describing any numerically singular thing, but sometimes meaning "a person". From the 17th century on, individual indicates separateness, as in individualism.

I struggle to understand what is meant by "individual" in regard to the trinity Father/Son relationship. How do you understand "separateness" in regard to the Trinity?

>>>We get all tangled up in words. The common understanding of individuals refers to separateness:I struggle to understand what is meant by "individual" in regard to the trinity Father/Son relationship. How do you understand "separateness" in regard to the Trinity?<<<

Like most Christians who desire to think deeply about their faith I did not accept the Trinity just because it is the traditional position. As a matter of fact, in the beginning, and for a rather considerable time after, it wasn’t even an issue. I was obsessed with the Bible, the reality of the Person of Jesus, the claims He made about Himself, the Life He lived, and His revelation of God. I came to see that the concept of the Trinity emerges organically from the words that God approves. As the significance of God’s revelation of Himself as “I AM” sunk in, along with some “special moments with Him,” I let go of the question of HOW “I AM” could exist as Trinity, and began to consider“ WHY “I AM” is Trinity. The HOW question lost it weightiness because I came to accept that “I AM” exists “anyway” He says He does because this is His to determine, and nothing -- absolutely nothing – even exists to say otherwise. Ontologically, as is to be expected, He is infinitely “freer” than we are as a created “i am” to say what He can, or cannot, Be – what His “I AM” IS or is not. We simply must not transfer our created “i am” intuitions and rationalizations of what an “I am” is over to “I AM.”

So…I came to “believe” that to “understand” the Trinity I had to go deeper and grapple with God’s identification of Himself as “I AM.” This, along with my interest in the (General Revelation) implications of what humanity has just recently (the last 100 years) discovered about the nature of “material” reality (viz. the quality of true “objectivity” does not inhere in it), got me to questioning just how “I AM” created an absolutely (ontologically) “other” reality than Himself. As you read in my previous posts I came to see that it is “I AM’s” existence as Trinity that grounds the reality of “otherness” (objective reality). God, Himself, exists in a state of Being in which inheres that which He wills to bring forth. In the heart of God’s Being there is love of (for) the “other,” first in the Love of the Father for the Son (Who is other than the Father), and the Love of the Son for the Father (Who is other than the Son). This, after all, is what God seeks in Creation : other beings who are truly other than Him and that truly love the Other that He IS, and the “others” that He has made.

As I said earlier, this also adds much to the understanding of “the problem of evil.” God’s priority (first love) in His creative endeavor is the establishment and maintenance of “otherness” (objective reality -- truly "other" beings). He conceived this and established it as REALITY in His own Being. This means that what He is creating is necessarily able (free) to be other than the good He intends. There is no imperative that these others be other than He intends; it is simply an inherent risk that needed not ever be actualized for Him to accomplish what He seeks in creation. Because of this risk God, before the foundation the world, built in the remedy (Rev 13:8).

After all this, as a reintroduction to my previous posts, I would simply say, in answer to your specific question, I AM “let” a “separateness” exist in His Own Being in the same sense that Genesis 1 uses the word “let” in the creation narrative. And it was so!

What follows is more of the same – more rationale for the Genius of the Trinity.

I AM, from (in) eternity, LOVES the “idea” of truly (ontologically) other beings with whom to share Life. This is what it is to say that God is Love. I AM’s Trinitarian state of Being allows for the existence of the reality of -- for the lack of a better word -- “otherness” within His own Being. Creation (our Cosmos) is a “construct” (Heb. 11:3) within the “otherness” within the Being of God (Acts 17: 27-28) that exists because I AM is Trinity. Again, the reality of “otherness” -- object vis-à-vis object existence – our “objective reality” -- is grounded in I AM’s existence as Trinity.

The above redundancy is necessary because our natural beings (our sinful selves) are not naturally other-centered. Our (inherited) self-centeredness (our sinful state) just naturally causes us to be so full of ourselves that we miss that it is a miracle (of Genius) that we even exist at all. So real is our Cosmos – our dimension of Reality – that we do not, in any true sense, doubt our own existence. As a matter of fact, in our Reality it is the existence of God that is absolutely in doubt (to the sinful self). And where He is “believed in” He is terribly misrepresented outside of His own revelation of Himself in Christ (to be the True God). This is an absurd state of affairs, but it witnesses to the genius of I AM in creating a reality that is objectively real and truly “other” than Him : that is, we are not like the ethereal, ephemeral phantasms that we “create” in our own beings in our dreams.

When we are “awoken in Christ” the whole agenda of the Spirit of God is to transform our natures (through partaking of His Divine Nature – His Trinitarian state of Being in which the Other is loved) to become wholly other-centered. First by always preferring (loving) Jesus above all else because He is that Being in our lives Who simply deserves such a response on our part, and then by putting others (and their needs) in the same place He does.

The “risk” God took in creating a reality truly other than Himself (that is, the risk that it would make itself other than He intended, thus making itself Evil) is justified in our Creator’s sight in His Gain : that is the “new” other-centered Love that is the Body of Christ.

Certain “facts” of General Revelation were adduced earlier in support of the view of the Trinity presented here. It would be good at this time to expand upon the “understanding” of the nature of our created reality that our best secular minds are putting forth. Science is not the enemy that it is supposed it is because, rightly understood, it is wooing the rational mind back to its Creator. Witness the words of Sheldon Glashow, Nobel Laureate in Physics, lamenting that “contemplation of superstrings may evolve into an activity as remote from conventional particle physics as particle physics is from chemistry, to be conducted at schools of divinity by future equivalents of medieval theologians…for the first time since the Dark Ages, we can see how our noble search may end, with faith replacing science once again.”

The early luminaries of the “new physics” - Quantum Theory – were shocked to discover that the twin rails of classical physics, determinism and objectivity, had melted away leaving their “train of thought” up in the air, so to speak. That is, the cold hard “material” world of everyday reality had disappeared before their very eyes. Again, let the witness of Niels Bohr, one of its earliest pioneers, confirm the very thing that Hebrews 11: 3 testifies to : “everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.” Some few years later another of humanity’s brightest minds in this field, Sir James Jeans, asserted that “the stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the Universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine.”

So much more evidence is available to anyone who wishes to hear true science (true knowledge) beginning to sing, again, the song of its Creator. This leaves us right where the word of God has long told us that we really are : living, and moving, and having our being in Him (Acts 17:27-28). This great imposing phenomenal world of concrete mountains and endless galaxies is an ingenious non-material construct that is -- as Max Planck, the originator of Quantum Theory, asserted -- “derivative from consciousness.”

In the truest sense, then, Creation is as immediate “to” God as our dreams are to us. As a matter of fact, the “(non)-reality” we create in our dream state hints of how God makes the real world. We must stop being so “imposed” upon by the enormity and “concreteness” of the world around us because, TO GOD, it is made of the same “stuff” (of which our dreams are). Rather we should be imposed upon by our God before Whom the entire Cosmos disappears as “easily” as He made it appear.

So then, how did God make, with “the stuff that words are” (Psalm 33:6), a real world that is “other” than Him (even while it is) within His very own Being? As stated earlier, I AM makes “room” within Himself by being Trinity – “otherness” within Himself. When we understand the nature of reality, even our supposed “concrete” reality, we realize that, indeed, the world is the actual expression (word) of the thoughts of God within His own Being. There is a “real place” in God that is “other” than Himself because He has made the reality of “otherness” to exist by being “Otherness” Himself! This is not a dream, not an illusion, only because I AM is Trinity! He is right here, hidden in plain sight, less than a thought away, waiting for us to behold Him! Had Adam not sinned we’d not lost this intimacy – we would have matured within it. Now, because I AM IS Jesus we have it again right now, right here, forever! Spirit and soul rejoices, and soon our bodies will be bodies of joy!

Wouldn't you be saying the same things whether God were a "binity", "trinity", or "septinity"? Does anything you're saying require God in three persons or would just two suffice? Don't you really mean "the Divine Genius of God in Multiple Persons"?

For the record, I have no problem at all with trinitarianism. I think it's as good a theory as any (perhaps the best) to try to explain the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But so often, people seem to think they've made a case for trinitarianism when all they've really argued for is the divinity of Jesus or (in your case) an "otherness" (or sometimes a love-relationship) within "the God-head", which is an argument for at least a binity, but not necessarily a trinity.

Thank you, and Happy New Year All!!

... that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. John 5:23

>>>Wouldn't you be saying the same things whether God were a "binity", "trinity", or "septinity<<<

Reduced to the essence of what I’m saying I agree with you thus far.

>>>Does anything you're saying require God in three persons or would just two suffice?<<<

The greater context of what I’m saying is set by the revelation of (from) God and I am, of course, thereby (thankfully) constrained. In earlier posts I asserted that the Trinity emerges organically from I AM’s revelation of Himself in the Scriptures, and I dare not (nor do I need to), in anything I say, contradict, nor contravene, this revelation. Besides, in existing as Father “and” as Son, I AM does not cease To Be simply I AM (Holy Spirit). This Father vis-à-vis Son dynamic of the Godhead is I AM’s “template” for Creation because this is, in the midst of the whole grand panorama of Creation, the fruit He seeks : sons (and daughters) in the Son -- the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ really is the whole reason -- the only reason – that I AM endures His labor of creation (2 Corinthians 4:15; Romans 8:28).

My hope here -- and I am content that it be but a hope -- is to open an avenue that approaches, from a different angle, the “problem” of understanding I AM’s Trinitarian state of Being. Sometimes, in solving an extremely difficult problem, it is necessary to rethink the question that is being asked. That is, asking the right question opens up the way to arriving at the answer that corresponds with reality.

>>>Don't you really mean "the Divine Genius of God in Multiple Persons"?<<<

If I were to change the name of this topic I might call it the Divine Genius of Otherness because what I am really aiming at is an understanding of the concept that “Trinity” embodies : a Oneness in which inheres the reality of “Otherness.” It is this that “befuddles” the created mind because Oneness and “Otherness” are words that do not seem to be able to simultaneously identify the same reality. It is not the idea of “Multiple Persons” that is essential here, but rather that I AM has a “why” He is Trinity, and that the “how” He is Trinity is really the “wrong” question. As I stated in an earlier post our befuddlement stems from transferring our intuitions of our own “i am” reality over to I AM’s Being. Rather, it is our place to “behold” Him and the Wonder of His Being in Being Who He reveals Himself To Be -- Who He says He IS! Being Trinity is not “hard” for I AM as it is hard for us to understand, and, as a matter of fact, it is not hard at all in view of the Sovereign-ness that I AM IS (please forgive, if necessary, my overuse of capitals).

>>>For the record, I have no problem at all with trinitarianism. I think it's as good a theory as any (perhaps the best) to try to explain the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But so often, people seem to think they've made a case for trinitarianism when all they've really argued for is the divinity of Jesus or (in your case) an "otherness" (or sometimes a love-relationship) within "the God-head", which is an argument for at least a binity, but not necessarily a trinity<<<

The case for the Trinity that I present here -- as you can tell -- is not based on a binity vs. trinity type of rationale. It is the quality of “Otherness” that inheres in I AM’s existence as Trinity that is essential to His creation of an “other” reality that is objectively real. There is a “place of otherness” within the Being of I AM -- a “place” that is other than I AM – that is the “place” where Creation exists, and only because I AM exists in a “State of Otherness” Himself. Remember that the true nature of our reality is not material – not “physical” – in the sense that human beings experience it. This grand phenomenal Cosmos is a construct framed by the word of God in His Being in that” place” that is “other” than Him. This “place” -- a real place -- exists only because its “otherness” is grounded by the reality of I AM’s “Otherness.” Again, otherness is only real because otherness is made real by I AM’s existence as Otherness.

Thanks be to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for the full commitment of His Being to the joy and success of our being with Him for Eternity! The joy that accompanies being taken out of the world to be with Him is the same joy that is experienced when we “let” Him take the world out of us!